标题: Making A Perfect Baby 订做精品婴儿 [打印本页] 作者: 幽幽草 时间: 2007-4-5 17:11 标题: Making A Perfect Baby 订做精品婴儿
"Egg Donor Needed. $50,000 Incentive." This is a sample heading from one of the ads that has begun to appear at Ivy League schools such as Yale and Harvard. Although egg donation is not news, those intending to purchase human eggs have now gone beyond requesting a certain eye color to demanding Ivy League degrees. These potential buyers believe that raising the standard of their criteria will bring them a better baby. But does this ambition to purchase a genetic advantage for their children make them bad parents?
Couples who place these ads assume that if a young woman attends an Ivy League school, then she will likely pass on her academic ability to her offspring. This assumption disregards many other factors such as the genetic contribution of the sperm and the determining forces of our environment. Our lives are influenced, but not predetermined by our genes.
One danger of ordering babies like televisions is that parents may have unreasonable expectations of their child. If the child doesn't turn out the way the parents envisioned, how will he or she be treated? Good parents accept their children for whoever they happen to be—not just for attending Yale.
